Arrr! See CONTENTS for links to the 125 chapters of The Monstaville Memoirs plus introductions, conclusions, postscripts and appendices. This treasure trove also includes a collection of articles offering further insights into the themes explored in the trilogy. Namely, managing suffering and conflict (dealing with hostile people if you are nervous, sensitive or shy) and learning not to react

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Monday, 13 April 2015

Monstaville Book III. Chapter 7

7

“Let us pray for a mind so poised
and balanced that we give poise and strength to others.”

- White Eagle.

Regarding the abusers of power in
this world, the logical solution is to use every force available to obliterate
them, but that’s my male side talking, my will and my head! The love and wisdom
that are felt in the feminine heart whisper that the oneness of life is sacred
because we all belong to one Godhead; we are all One. When we feel more, we
love more. I don’t mean emotional responses in the belly that result from
superficial needs and dependency, but - you know? - this the still waters
running deep, the wisdom of the heart. It looks like a dark abyss from afar,
when centred in one’s own individual will and identity has a human being, as a
man. Yet, it is no different from a clear, tranquil, shimmering lake which, to
me, is about the most beautiful thing that exists in nature.

At first, you wince as, bit by bit,
your legs experience the freezing temperature and your bollocks bark and growl
in anger and fear, fight or flight (‘You bastard, what do you think you’re
doing?...No, no way, stop you crazy son-of-a-bitch! Let’s get out of
here...nooo...!). Yet, it is not long before your body grows accustomed to the
temperature and the water feels comfortable and relaxing. Even your bollocks -
if they could talk - take it all back: ‘This is Heaven! We really must do this
more often!’ Boom boom! (No idea why I seem to think that if testicles could
talk they could have a voice like Basil Brush).

So, you swim, or play, float,
make-love, whatever, and it all feels beautiful and makes you smile. You feel at
peace. The sun is shining overhead and your body feels just right. Stillness
and movement flow together naturally. This is the effect that the feminine -
infinite consciousness - should have on us. It is both something that exists,
with its own properties, and what we make it. We behave differently on land, we
men in particular, with our conscious but limited egos. In the lake, there is
only so much action you can engage in. The only thing to do is feel...relax. It
is a peaceful place where will and identity can exist but not in isolation and
where they are less likely to dominate, to exclude consciousness itself from
the arena of human experience. For, it is the experience (illusion) of physical
separateness that concentrates man’s energy and creates a false identity and
that wants what it wants NOW and is blind to the needs and feelings of others.

The inner silence defies the head,
like the Oracle defies the Architect in The
Matrix trilogy. The old order is mechanical, limited, fixed. Anything
beyond its reasoned constructs and the principles which comprise its identity
are unacceptable. They are a threat that must be dealt with not accommodated. Zion must be annihilated.
It’s logical! Well, I’m not saying that, but I am saying that the worst
elements in humanity, the ones who exist to cause chaos...You know, I don’t
know what to do about them! That’s why we have prisons. Society doesn’t know
what to do with them either.

Raw power, launched in anger because
things aren’t the way we want, or expect, them to be serves no one, least of
all ourselves. Reason and compassion, an open mind and an open heart, must be
the wings with which the mind is elevated and flies alongside the angels. As
long as the separate ego stands in our way, eclipsing the heart, obstructing
the flow of love, cutting us off from the whole, the voice of ‘reason’ will
remain confined to the logic that is relevant only within a certain framework.
The will is then decisive but wisdom is left far behind. Feeling: feeling
should permeate every moment of our lives just as we ought to be conscious of
what we feel and who we are (‘You teach best what you most need to learn,’ as
Richard Bach notes in Illusions).

Monsters at
the gate…We men tend to identify with and centre ourselves in what comes up
from within us. So if monsters come up we think we must be monsters and feel
bad about ourselves or change direction either to ill-effect upon ourselves or
others. The male body concentrates energy/will/power so we're gonners unless we
can open our hearts and release the love of the divine within us. And that
comes through wisdom and practice of course. Like a new muscle we're
exercising. Man’s body has a shape that reflects his single-mindedness. His
concentrated energy summons will which, of course, has its place, but the
ensuing power requires a level of inner strength and self-discipline most do
not develop. Years of pain and toil may lead a man to the lake of wisdom and
love and then it’s time to go home. Woman’s more curvaceous body reflects her
multi-dimensionality, that of consciousness itself as it flows in cycles and
response; in fact, like the current of the sea, which builds up momentum and
finally crashes on the shore and then withdraws to start the process all over
again. Energy circulates through the feeling of wholeness but much is wasted
and dissipated without a central focus, a concrete, conscious sense of
identity. There can be power then only by developing one’s will (I am
generalising; of course some women are more strong-willed than men but it is
usually not in isolation as the male ego tends to be), or by bonding with other
women.

There are two types of ego. Both are
negative but, within that paradigm are the positive (active) extrovert/bully
and the negative (passive) introvert/victim. They represent extremes resulting
from conditioning in which people become stuck. To become more balanced, the
extrovert needs to relax and open up to become more sensitive and caring while
the introvert needs to draw on his or her inner power somehow and become more
assertive and confident. Anaïs Nin once wrote, “Life is a process of becoming,
a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they
wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” Seen from the
perspective of process (feminine), it is so obvious that the fixed,
self-centred, competitive ego is an ignorant state to hold on to. Viewed from
the perspective of purpose (masculine), it appears equally obvious that just
being open to life and people, passively responding and caring for others is
pointless. Human beings have at least some potential to express (so they are
either winners or losers in a competitive or tyrannical male-dominated
society), however limited. What else is there? When we are attuned to our
feelings, we know that they flow continuously, and, in the depths of the soul,
we also know that, on this level, we are all one, neither being nor becoming,
just sharing the body of water in the lake, as it were. It is when the
masculine and feminine, the head and heart, are balanced that we realise life
is a perpetual process of becoming. But, one cannot continue to become more
unless one has a conscious identity to deepen and expand. It is a great cosmic
joke. We need both aspects, being and consciousness, yet, taken separately, we
are doomed. Either we will be passive victims or selfish despots. Either we
will be stuck in a tight, fixed, knot of egocentricity or all the strands will
fall apart and leave us with nothing to show for our trials in life.

Firmness and flexibility, say the
Daoists, firm in your core as an individual expression of God, with your unique
vibration of consciousness, and gentle and yielding, relaxed and accommodating,
towards other people and towards all conditions with which life presents you.
Because that is all oneness and it is the oneness of the river that slowly
shapes the rock, removing its hard edges. Gradually, the rock’s shape no longer
resists the flow of water or looks out of place. The individual spark of
consciousness adopts a softer shape, a kinder attitude. Its surface becomes
smoother and it achieves a state of complete harmony with the incessant flow of
water. It looks more comfortable and it feels at home in the river. The water
could never change because it has no real substance. That which has substance
must evolve until it is perfected, until it is perfectly aligned with nature.
We may hate to change, to suffer and grow, but the universe, in its wisdom, has
provided tools to shape us so that we may deepen our self-awareness instead of
sticking out like protruding monoliths that exist for their own sake in the
illusory dimension of separateness. We must remain both centred and open, know
ourselves, but be prepared to change, at least in certain areas, certain blind
spots which we have yet to explore and understand more consciously. We must
know ourselves, not as fixed entities in a physical and material context, but
as magical beings with limitless potential, endless possibilities, in fact.

"It's hard for many people to
believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as
others." - Unbreakable (directed
by M. Night Shyamalan, 2000).

When we feel at home in the
collective universe, when we do not feel the temptation to resist anything,
when we are confident in our own inner, conscious will and identity, the water
passes all around us and we feel it and welcome it. It does not crash against
stubborn walls of resistance or spin off at wild angles from sharp edges. The
rock remains. In fact, it knows itself more deeply because it is not forever
fighting against the outside world, being agitated or trying to get its own
way. It does not confine its conscious awareness to its superficial, external
identity alone. It does not identify with those worldly parts of itself which,
however powerful and tough they may appear, represent, in fact, the transient
exterior that is first in the firing line. While we have been granted free will
in order to grow individually through the power of choice, we cannot stop the
flow of experience which bombards those hard edges. Become more rounded we
must. Hmmmmm. (My best Yoda impression).

Unfortunately, being surrounded by
the water of collective consciousness in this world, we do not always receive
the warm rays of the Sun. Indeed, the water is often so overcast that we would
rather be more active in order to generate heat and keep ourselves warm and
stimulated in a physical way than step into the cold pool of water that
threatens to extinguish our joy and enthusiasm, even our will to live. Then,
there are those who are addicted to stress and displays of aggression and
power. And, yet, how are we ever going to create a world in which everyone is
surrounded by love? Heaven on Earth can manifest only when we, as individuals,
open out hearts fully and allow universal love to shine forth in all its
abundant glory.

This is what I’ve learned over the
past ten years, both to become and be more powerful as an individual, using the
power of intention, and to understand that whatever others do is just their
personal experience, just part of the collective river of life. It does not
affect my core but teaches me to understand that, whatever others do is just
their personal experience, just part of the collective river of life. It does
not affect my core but teaches me to be more compassionate.

“Resist what resists in you. Become
yourself.” - The Mahabarata.

While I have never really hated
anybody, I can see how closing off my heart to certain types of people helps to
sustain the illusion of separation. Internal division breeds external conflict.
It might be necessary to take action and express power but, always, it should
be done with love and, preferably, humour. It is important not to resist life
or what it throws at us, but to surrender the ego and view things from a higher
perspective as well as to find the right tools for dealing with the situation
most effectively and harmoniously. As Winston Churchill said: “If you are going
through hell, keep going” (or, as Robert Frost suggested, "The best way
out is always through"). Pay off your karmic debts and learn the lessons
they bring. It certainly looks like I am learning to love all equally.

“Look upon all difficulty as a way
to exert your will-power.” - Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov.

Ultimately, we need to ensure that
the power and will of God - the Self - is expressed, not that of the ego, the
self. Why? Because the latter stunts our growth and chains us to the Wheel of
Karma and therefore misery, even if we temporarily silence our fear and
insecurities (in the ‘now’), and the former leads us ever onwards and upwards
to greater realisations of creative power and, beyond the domain of matter,
ever-increasing levels of love and happiness. Under hypnosis, I witnessed
myself as a soul in my mother’s womb preparing to be born. I was honestly
shocked by the feeling of peaceful, even keen, anticipation at the prospect of
undergoing my imminent ordeal which would last for years and affect me for the
whole of my life. It was there in front of my mind’s eye, as clear as daylight,
with a kind of me-ish form, a pure image of what my soul might look like if it
had form. The feeling was beautiful and unmistakably real, but it was hard to
believe or accept. It was incredible, fascinating! It taught me a lot about how
blind we are to what is going on beneath the surface, underneath all the
conditioning accumulated through experience.

For all my incessant desire to
escape from all this madness, really it is nothing more than the stirring of
mud on the river bed, an opportunity to experience the latent negativity within
the unconscious so that it can be cleared with conscious light. The water itself
remains pure for, when the turbulence finally comes to an end and the dirt
settles back again, the water is as clear and pristine as ever. It is in
contrast to the disturbances of the temporal world and their effect on our
personal consciousness that we reflect the Sun’s radiant majesty more richly
and awaken to our original nature as the Sun, the Self, beaming brightly at the
heart of universal consciousness. Thus, each time we incarnate, we gather more
gold even though we may not be aware of how much we have accumulated in the
spiritual bank. Then, when we depart, yet again, we get to enjoy all that
Light. No wonder, then, that the soul loves coming to this chaotic world!

“Take a breath and understand the
maturity that is required for the next step. You are given choices and
understanding to listen and believe and be greater than you are now. Let your
heart begin to open in compassion for what is to become of a world that is lost
to many and found by others. Let yourself see into your eyes and know that you
are coming forth as a Wayshower and one who can speak the truth and become the
truth, become a planetary teacher, a teacher of Light. There are moments in
each life when you are given an opportunity to make a choice. This is such a
time and you have already made this choice to move into the Light, to move into
the higher Light and to hear the sound of the celestial spheres, the sound of
harmonics and resonance that echo throughout your mind and into the other
dimensions. You are being brought into a higher place of knowing. You are
seeing things and knowing things and understanding that you are much more than
you ever thought you were. Many experience the psychic experiences of feeling
and being in other places and other times, of knowing different people and
feeling the coincidences that allow you to breathe through veil after veil
after veil.” (YouTube video, September 2008: The GoldRing. Game of Enlightenment and Abundance. ‘Shining Ones of
the Enlightenment’).

The Vermont Trip Red Scale Film by omnialx on Flickr

The Fire From Within
by Carlos Castaneda
(Simon & Schuster, New York, U.S., 1984).

* Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens
us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our
self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.

Every
effort should be made to eradicate self-importance from the lives of warriors.
Without self-importance we are invulnerable.

* I've explained to you that the new seers aim to be free. And freedom
has the most devastating implications. Among them is the implication that
warriors must purposely seek change. Your predilection is to live the way you
do. You stimulate your reason by running through your inventory and pitting it
against your friends' inventories. Those manoeuvres leave you very little time
to examine yourself and your fate. You will have to give up all that.

* Seers are divided into two categories. Those who are willing to
exercise self-restraint and can channel their activities toward pragmatic goals,
which would benefit other seers and man in general, and those who don't care
about self-restraint or about any pragmatic goals. The latter have failed to
resolve the problem of self-importance.

Self-importance
is not something simple and naive. On the one hand, it is the core of
everything that is good in us, and on the other hand, the core of everything
that is rotten. To get rid of the self-importance that is rotten requires a
masterpiece of strategy.

* In order to follow the path of knowledge one has to be very
imaginative. In the path of knowledge nothing is as clear as we'd like it to
be. Warriors fight self-importance as a matter of strategy, not principle.

Impeccability
is nothing else but the proper use of energy. My statements have no inkling of
morality. I've saved energy and that makes me impeccable. To understand this,
you have to save enough energy yourself.

Warriors
take strategic inventories. They list everything they do. Then they decide
which of those things can be changed in order to allow themselves a respite, in
terms of expending their energy.

The
strategic inventory covers only behavioural patterns that are not essential to
our survival and well-being.

In
the strategic inventories of warriors, self-importance figures as the activity
that consumes the greatest amount of energy, hence, their effort to eradicate
it.

One
of the first concerns of warriors is to free that energy in order to face the
unknown with it. The action of rechannelling that energy is impeccability.

The
most effective strategy for rechannelling that energy consists of six elements
that interplay with one another. Five of them are called the attributes of
warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and will. They pertain
to the world of the warrior who is fighting to lose self-importance. The sixth
element, which is perhaps the most important of all, pertains to the outside
world and is called the petty tyrant.

A
petty tyrant is a tormentor. Someone who either holds the power of life and
death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction.

Petty
tyrants teach us detachment. The ingredients of the new seers' strategy shows
how efficient and clever is the device of using a petty tyrant. The strategy
not only gets rid of self-importance; it also prepares warriors for the final
realisation that impeccability is the only thing that counts in the path of
knowledge.

Usually,
only four attributes are played. The fifth, will, is always saved for an
ultimate confrontation, when warriors are facing the firing squad, so to speak.

Will
belongs to another sphere, the unknown. The other four belong to the known,
exactly where the petty tyrants are lodged. In fact, what turns human beings
into petty tyrants is precisely the obsessive manipulation of the known.

The
interplay of all the five attributes of warriorship is done only by seers who
are also impeccable warriors and have mastery over will. Such an interplay is a
supreme manoeuvre that cannot be performed on the daily human stage.

Four
attributes are all that is needed to deal with the worst of petty tyrants,
provided, of course, that a petty tyrant has been found. The petty tyrant is
the outside element, the one we cannot control and the element that is perhaps
the most important of them all. The warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a
lucky one. You're fortunate if you come upon one in your path, because if you
don't you have to go out and look for one.

If
seers can hold their own in facing petty tyrants, they can certainly face the
unknown with impunity, and then they can even stand the presence of the
unknowable.

Nothing
can temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of dealing with
impossible people in positions of power. Only under those conditions can
warriors acquire the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure of the
unknowable.

The
perfect ingredient for the making of a superb seer is a petty tyrant with
unlimited prerogatives. Seers have to go to extremes to find a worthy one. Most
of the time they have to be satisfied with very small fry. Then warriors
develop a strategy using the four attributes of warriorship: control,
discipline, forbearance, and timing.

On
the path of knowledge there are four steps. The first step is the decision to
become apprentices. After the apprentices change their views about themselves
and the world they take the second step and become warriors, which is to say,
beings capable of the utmost discipline and control over themselves. The third
step, after acquiring forbearance and timing, is to become men of knowledge.
When men of knowledge learn to see they have taken the fourth step and have
become seers.

Control
and discipline refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented, not in a
selfish way but in the sense of a total examination of the self.

Forbearance
and timing are not quite an inner state. They are in the domain of the man of
knowledge.

The
idea of using a petty tyrant is not only for perfecting the warrior's spirit,
but also for enjoyment and happiness. Even the worst tyrants can bring delight,
provided, of course, that one is a warrior.

The
mistake average men make in confronting petty tyrants is not to have a strategy
to fall back on; the fatal flaw is that average men take themselves too
seriously; their actions and feelings, as well as those of the petty tyrants,
are all-important. Warriors, on the other hand, not only have a
well-thought-out strategy, but are free from self-importance. What restrains
their self-importance is that they have understood that reality is an interpretation
we make.

Petty
tyrants take themselves with deadly seriousness while warriors do not. What
usually exhausts us is the wear and tear on our self-importance. Any man who
has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel worthless.

To
tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called control. Instead of
feeling sorry for himself a warrior immediately goes to work mapping the petty
tyrant's strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks of behaviour.

To
gather all this information while they are beating you up is called discipline.
A perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming feature.

Forbearance
is to wait patiently - no rush, no anxiety - a simple, joyful holding back of
what is due.

A
warrior knows that he is waiting and what he is waiting for. Right there is the
great joy of warriorship.

Timing
is the quality that governs the release of all that is held back. Control,
discipline, and forbearance are like a dam behind which everything is pooled.
Timing is the gate in the dam.

Forbearance
means holding back with the spirit something that the warrior knows is
rightfully due. It doesn't mean that a warrior goes around plotting to do
anybody mischief, or planning to settle past scores. Forbearance is something
independent. As long as the warrior has control, discipline, and timing,
forbearance assures giving whatever is due to whoever deserves it.

To
be defeated by a small-fry petty tyrant is not deadly, but devastating.
Warriors who succumb to a small-fry petty tyrant are obliterated by their own
sense of failure and unworthiness.

Anyone
who joins the petty tyrant is defeated. To act in anger, without control and
discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be defeated.

After
warriors are defeated they either regroup themselves or they abandon the quest
for knowledge and join the ranks of the petty tyrants for life.

* One of the greatest forces in the lives of warriors is fear, it spurs
them to learn.

* Pull yourself together and don't fight your fear, roll with it. Be
afraid without being terrified. Put all your concentration on the midpoint of
your body - a true centre of energy in all of us. Fear does not exist as soon
as the glow of awareness moves beyond a certain threshold inside man's cocoon.

* Any warrior can be successful with people provided that he moves his
assemblage point to a position where it is immaterial whether people like him,
dislike him, or ignore him.

* The two basic qualities of warriors are sustained effort and unbending
intent.

"The
basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes
everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing
or as a curse." - don Juan (The Wheel of Time: The
Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe by Carlos Castaneda,
Washington Square Press, New York, U.S., 1998).

“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is
rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our
lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an
average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.” - Carlos Castaneda (The Wheel of Time, Simon and Schuster, New
York, U.S., 2001).

Baldrick
(Tony
Robinson): Wait my lord, do not despair. For I have a
cunning plan. Blackadder
(Rowan Atkinson): Can I
say I'm not optimistic Baldrick? Baldrick: To be quite frank my lord,
neither am I. My family have never been very good at plans. Blackadder: So. With suitably low
expectations, what is your plan to get us home?

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Did you know that this is the 12th and lowest universe in our multiverse and that it is founded on the energies of fear and suffering which were not resolved in the 11th?

Karma & Emotions

This e-book explores the opportunity for releasing deep emotional blockages from the past that crisis presents and the notion that this process of self-healing is an essential aspect of spiritual ascension (click the picture for more info & free pdf download)

What is, is; how we react is up to us!

"Life is 10 percent of what you make it and 90 percent of how you take it." - Irving Berlin.

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About Me

Born on 25 November 1965 and currently living in Yorkshire, England. I write songs and books and have a website that serves as a platform for my work as well as being an Ascension resource. The Treasure Chest displays all chapters of The Monstaville Memoirs trilogy as well as further insights from various sources relating to the themes of these books. The Powerlessness of Now reveals the many ways in which we have given our power away to the Establishment through its web of control.

“Someone asked, ‘Why is there suffering?’ [Meher] Baba gave this succinct reply: ‘Suffering is essential for the elimination of the ego, just as it was necessary for you to scrub and scrub in order to wash the stain from my coat.’" - Unkown.

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“Strong souls aren't just born. They are built by forging through the most challenging perils in life and still having the ability to shine.“ – Anon.

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“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”- Joseph Campbell.